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Chicago Sun Times Swaps iPhone Training For Staff Photographers
frdmfghtr notes (via Cult of Mac) that "the reporters of the Chicago Sun-Times are being given training in iPhone photography, to make up for the firing of the photography staff. From the CoM story: 'The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs. It's a also a sign of how traditional journalism is being changed by technology like the iPhone and the advent of digital publishing.'"
Why an iPhone? Why any phone? Why you remove progressional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography. Next they'll be teaching them how to use photoshop to fix their crap pictures (or even assemble them from stock photos so they don't need to be bothered going out at all).
When you remove professional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography.
When you remove subscription paying readers from the equation, you get less money to pay professional photographers.
The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs.
No, the move is a trend towards replacing trained skilled professionals (in this case, photojournalists) with cheap, unskilled labor (reporters who might be fine reporters, but don't know shit about photography and photojournalism; or even "user submissions" from Joe Random's cellphone). The cost of a DSLR is nothing compared to wages for a professional. Unfortunately, the *results* from dumping the photojournalists are also nothing compared to using the professional --- and it's not a matter of camera quality. A professional photojournalist with an iPhone would produce better photojournalism than non-experts with a DSLR. The Chicago Sun Times isn't throwing away "pixel quality" so much as "journalism quality" --- no wonder newspapers are dying.
"You'll get much better shots from an iPhone than you will if you hand over a D4 or a MkIII to a non-photographer."
No, actually, you won't. DSLRs still have "green square mode" which puts the things in automatic. You won't get the results you'd get from the same camera with a decent photographer behind it, but you'll get better results than a camera phone provides.
That's an elitist view.
There is no need for any sort of special professional to press a button on a handled camera device, DSLR or not.
It doesn't take any special skill to pull a trigger either. The skill is in identifying what to shoot and in aiming.